View every stunning entry in National Geographic photo contest

National Geographic has posted the entries for their 2012 photo of the year competition. The annual competition allows readers to submit their own photos, which are then judged by National Geographic, which will announce the winners on December 15.

This year alone, 20,005 entries were submitted by the time the submission deadline passed on Friday, November 30. All captions posted below these photos were written by the photographers themselves.

The Atlantic has collected 50 of their favorite images from the entries, but you can view all 20,005 simply by heading over to the National Geographic site.

The winner of the 2011 competition was a stunning image of a dragonfly holding on to a plant as a sudden rainstorm begins and threatens to pull the creature away.